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What Do We Do All Winter? Part 3

I’m back with another installment in my attempt to provide you with a peek of what goes on at Morey’s Piers during these cold, windy and in recent years, SNOWY months between October and April. Today, I’ll be focusing on our Attractions Maintenance department.

Morey’s Piers Attractions Maintenance is generally responsible for, you guessed it, our attractions! What could we possibly have to do to our 75 amusement rides during these winter months? Glad you asked! Our team of 30 ride technicians has been hard at work preparing for opening day since October 11 – yes, that’s the day after we closed for the season.

Here’s a very, very small sampling of what our Attractions Maintenance Team has been up to recently:

On Adventure Pier

Upgrades to the screamin’ swing ride system that will enable us to improve the ride experience for our guests.

Refurbishment of the SpringShot mechanicals which required a large crane to remove the top pulleys as well as the spring machine (new springs for 2011 = more extreme!)

Complete refurbishment of the two Great White trains including new style lap bar mechanisms for added comfort and redundancy for enhanced safety. New paint jobs too!

Refurbishment of the Great White queue line system.

On Mariner’s Landing Pier

Refurbishment of the Carousel Scenery and Horses.

Refurbishment of the interior structure of the Sea Dragon boat.

Removal and refurbishment of 10 Giant Wheel cars (we do 10 each year).

Removal of the 1,200 lb gearbox that runs the Sea Serpent lift 2 chain – sent to Europe for servicing.

Removal and replacement of the hydraulic pump that runs the Sea Serpent lift motors.

On Surfside Pier

Installation of new guide wheel spindle locking caps for the Great Nor’Easter trains that will allow for tighter adjustment to the wheels in our continuing quest for enhanced smoothness and a better experience for our guests.

Installation of new style seat bottoms for the Great Nor’Easter trains.

Repainting and refurbishment of the AtmosFEAR rider vehicle.

New lift hill chain and refurbishment of the chain drive mechanicals on the Great Nor’Easter.

A couple more interesting nuggets…

Normal disassembly procedures for each ride and waterpark area include a Quality Control program that measures tolerances on all critical ride parts.

Two different certified Non-Destructive Testing companies work here full time from October 1 through January 30 inspecting ride structures and parts.

Our processes have already created over 950 work orders that must be completed for opening day.

Since October, we’ve failed over 1,000 lbs in parts during our Quality Control checks.

Cool stuff, right? Well, I think it is, and I didn’t even touch on what they do in the waterparks! It’s just one more piece of the puzzle in our goal of exceeding guest expectations.